I'm 37 and I went to architecture school and I worked as an architect's
draftsmen for about the past 8 years. I worked in a movie theater in Chapel
Hill as well. At the moment Iím doing freelance computer work in Raleigh.
We're converting resumes onto database for a big temp agency. I also have
small inheritance from a grandfather that helps me out, to get by.
XDU's is about my main hobby, that and reading and occasional train travel.
The very first place I lived in Durham in 84 or 85, was a rooming house over
in North Durham. One of my housemates was friends with MJ Sharp, who
at that time was doing the Women in Music show...Through this housemate,
I met MJ and sometimes would visit her on the air. I always had an interest
in college radio since I was in college up in Ohio and always wanted to do a
show but never had time with architecture school being too grueling. After
watching her do her show, I talked to the program director at the time and
asked him about doing a little half hour comedy show. One Sunday night I
was visiting MJ and he said "How about doing your show next week?" After
I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said sure. I went in for a crash training
course that Wednesday night and was on the air the next Sunday night,
which was fall semester 86. And Iíve been there every since. It was Laugh
Tracks. It's always been Laugh Tracks. It was the only thing I figured I
knew enough material to be able to do a show. I wasnít well versed in
classical or country or jazz, or anything else...all I knew I heard on the radio.
But Iíve always liked comedy. I was a devotee of both written comedy and
TV comedy, like James Thurmer and S.J. Perlman...I have a fairly good size
collection of comedy albums. The station had a pretty good collection and I
began building on to it. I began cruising used record stores after I got the
show on a regular basis to look for albums. But I figured comedy was the one
thing that I knew enough about to do a whole show on.
About 5 years ago, there was a guy that was on before me on Sunday
evenings. He had a syndicated hour show called Music from the Hearts of
Space, that he was instrumental in getting XDU to carry. When he retired,
Hearts of Space was canceled and they gave me the hour...I began doing New
Frontier, which is my experimental, progressive, weird, fun stuff show. The
story behind that is, Fresh Air was a show that was on from midnight to six
am on the college radio station at Kent State, WKSU, where I was in school.
It played all kinds of exotic, strange, experimental stuff that you wouldnít
hear on regular radio. My last year there it was taken off the air when a new
general manager came and rearranged the station. I was quite distressed by
that and had always wanted to be a Fresh Air DJ but, like I said, I never had
the time with architecture school. I sort of wanted to revive a kind of fresh
air like show and got the chance when I got the hour when Hearts of Space
was on...I tried to kind of fill in its shoes, but go in a broader direction. I
listen to XDU a lot and whenever I hear something that seems to fit into my
show, I write it down and keep hold of it.
I thought XDU was a fun place, a cool place. It wasn't so organized and clean
as to be intimidating. I mean it looked like a place where people just hung
out and pursued their hobbie - being on the radio. It hasn't changed much
over the years. In terms of organization, the station has gotten a bit more
organized...I don't think I would have gotten a show just on the whim of the
program director, like I did..If Iíd come in now, I would have of course had
to fill out specialty show applications.
I think we had to become a little more coherent on who we were and what our
purpose was when we were in danger of losing our funding. There was a guy
named Jeffrey Marks, who was the president of the student council or
something (this was when our funding came out of student fees, before we
joined as part of the union) and he wanted to cut our funding, saying that we
were esoteric and out there and no one listened to us, etcetera...The people
who were running the station at that time put a little more effort and thought
into explaining to themselves and to the rest of us what XDU is and what it's
for. Iím not very coherent at these things, but generally it's to play stuff that
you won't hear on commercial radio for another five years yet...Having the
freedom of being non-commercial and not having to worry about paying bills
and selling ads and all, we can just explore.
I don't think we are listened to by the students as much as we'd like to be, but
our listening range, when our tower was up, covered Durham, Chapel Hill,
almost as far south as North Chatham County, a lot of Orange County. So
Duke University is just a very small part of our listening audience. We seem
to me kind of like a little well-kept secret backwater of Duke that not that
many people know about but is there for anybody who wants to come be a
part of us and DJ. Although, Iíve wondered sometimes what would happen
if, some student might, make the case that there's not enough student
involvement in the station. So many of our specialty show DJs, like myself,
are community members who never even went to Duke...but that's never
happened. A student might argue ďwe should just throw them out and make
it a strictly Duke station." That's never happened but it could happen. It
would make it kind of boring. Like I said, all of our specialty show DJs
would have to go off the air. Nobody would replace them. And the broad
spectrum of music that we play might narrow down a bit. DJs we might get
might be more interested in playing stuff that they like, stuff they hear on the
radio all the time, on the commercial radio stations, and not trying out the
more interesting stuff. People I meet all over the triangle say to me "Oh,
XDU, that's a really cool station. It plays all this interesting stuff." At XDU
we're allowed to mix things, we're allowed to pull things out of the playlist as
we see fit. Still it's playing stuff that is kind of on the edge.
I started helping Chris Calloway and Holly tracking. And the PSA slot was
empty at the time and I wanted to get more involved in the station - I just
wanted to, I donít know why - and Chris suggested to try the PSA thing,
which he said was a grueling and thankless job. So I took it over and pretty
much made it my own. Iíve put it on a schedule. I come in once a week, go
through the mail for the PSAís. I created Artline totally out of my own idea.
Since we got so many PSA's for fine arts stuff, I didn't want to have too many
PSA's in the box, so I started Artline which runs once a day, listing all the
fine arts stuff going on in the area.
College radio? More freedom , more experimentation, less regulation, less
having to worry about money and revenue. And it's a hobby. And people do
it because they enjoy it, because they're into it. Because they can dress
comfortably and smuggle beer in. Artistically, socially, it's someplace where
all kinds of musical types, people types, can be and find out more about each
other. It's something kind of outside the establishment, to use an old 60's
word. It's just kind of in XDU's nature that that's the way we are...We are
not a Dilbert kind of organization. And I wouldn't want us to be because
that wouldn't be fun, that wouldn't be a hobby.
There's always going to be that, kind of that tension between the fact that
we're a Duke station and Duke owns our broadcast license, and we operate
on Duke property and Duke funds, but we serve the entire western half of the
triangle community. Although you could turn that around and make a case
for it being a way that Duke university takes part in the life of the
community... Duke seems a little less connected to the community. So many
of the people living here, work at Duke. That would be a good defense point
if someone was to criticize us for being so non-Dukish. We're kind of an
outreach of Duke's. We're providing a source of entertainment and
knowledge and leisure to the community. There are a whole group of people
who just come and go and people who are there for a long time and know
each other. Weíre like a church for that matter. People who are the core of it
and the center and work at it all the time and people who come and go and
pass through.
We don't get as much press as Iíd like to see. The independent has been
quite wonderful with all our fundraisers for the tower. We had the drive-in
thing and they had a special blurb for it in their issue, talking about this
horror movie, "But the thought of life at XDU might be the scariest thought of
all."
I never thought of it being necessary...why not? It all depends on where
you're coming from and what you're talking about necessity...All kinds of
things people could make a case aren't' necessary but are fun, are people's
hobbies. Maybe people need hobbies to let off steam. Life without hobbies
would kind of scrunch people's minds and souls up. I never even thought of
that concept that XDU is necessary. It would just be really sad if it shut down
for any reason. You'd have all these people who enjoy doing radio shows
with no where to go. They'd lose this hobby that's important to them.